In January 2012, San Francisco mom Kayla Wu moved her MI kid LiLi to Beijing to experience real immersion

15 June 2013

Putting our eggs in the English basket

I’ve not written in months because I’ve been in America
struggling with the question of whether to return to China this summer or
not.Or rather, whether and for how long to return to
China.

In January, unbeknownst to anyone, I got us two frequent flyer tickets SFO-PEK for late July.Two tickets.One Way.

The thing is, while LiLi’s San Francisco public Mandarin
Immersion school has improved, in fact she’s not getting as much out of the
Chinese half as she would in China.The
English half also improved, hugely.I’ve
been thinking that we should be putting our eggs in the English basket since,
after all, she’ll be doing middle school and high school in America.I know this is the struggle of many, many
parents including many parents from our international bilingual school in
China.While I’m far from resolving the
conflict, I’ve become clear about one thing:LiLi’s education is the priority.

The problem is that if I could choose, setting aside school,
I would choose China.It continues to
call to me.Nevermind that in America I
live in an incredibly beautiful city, near amazing beaches, with decades’ old
connections and deep friendships, in a coolly imperfect 113 year old house in
which we’ve recently uncovered a trap door, and that we breathe 43/17 AQI(now 170 in BJ which isn’t too bad, well, for
BJ).

I don’t mind hanging out with uncertainty but have been
mystified as to why the Going was so clear and the Going Back is so not.

Over the months of pondering I’ve simultaneously been
searching for return tickets.Last week
some seats opened up for two days after school starts in August.I got them despite their terrible routing
(overnighting in Vancouver!) so we’d at least have the choice to come back to
SF without having to pay summer fares.

I get to put all decision making on hold for a couple of
weeks though because this weekend we’re off to Alaska to meet up with Grandma.Maybe spending the summer solstice above the Arctic Circle will
be illuminating.